Sunday, 30 August 2015

Deadline:Friday 25th September 2015
First prize of €250 for winning poem with a 2nd prize also to be awarded.
There will also be a special prize this year for a local entrant domiciled in Cavan or Meath.
Each poem must not exceed 50 lines, and should be typed, single-spaced.

Up to three poems may be submitted per entry.

A fee of €5 per poem or 3 poems for €10 is payable.

The judging panel this year is Michael Farry and Honor Duff

All shortlisted poems will be featured at a reading at Bailieborough Poetry Festival on Saturday 10th October 2015, and authors will be invited to attend. Also at the festival are visiting poets Niamh Boyce, Tony Curtis and Patsy McDermott. The venues will include the town library in the old Market Square and local bars and restaurants.

Glenn says: We are looking for your most interesting, creative, soulful writing. Take some chances. Move us.

No poetry, please. No erotica or hardcore genre stuff like alien steampunk zombies or speculative transgressive comic noir. Other than that, have fun and surprise us!

You may enter as often as you like. No simultaneous submissions for this contest.

All entries must be original and unpublished elsewhere. This means submissions that have been accepted for publication anywhere else, including anywhere on the internet, blogs, personal web pages, etc., are not eligible. Entries of more than 600 words or entries found to be published anywhere else will be immediately disqualified. Good luck and good writing!

All winning entries (including shortlisted stories) will be published in the September issue of Brilliant Flash Fiction. Link here

Tuesday, 25 August 2015

Submit a story idea; the best three ideas will be selected and receive a prize of €500 each. These three writers will also be mentored by an experienced script editor to bring their idea from a story outline to a finished script. One script will then be selected and the winning script will be made into a short film.

Entry Fee: 25 euro

Deadline: September 4th, 2015

Manager of Galway Film Centre, Declan Gibbons adds “We’re delighted to be collaborating with RTÉ on a new short film initiative and to be doing so under our new UNESCO Galway City of Film banner. We’re also really happy with our directors mentoring panel where emerging talent will get the benefit of such a wealth of experience of directing talent. Galway Film Fleadh are also on board and have agreed to have the finished film shown in competition in next year’s festival so this is a terrific opportunity for young writers and directors to cut their teeth.”

RTÉ’s Drama Development Executive David Crean said “ we’ve ring-fenced a total budget of €23,000 for this project to cover both the prizes, mentoring process and the production process. This gives us a healthy budget to work from and we really want to spend time finding and nurturing new writing and directing talent and to bring them through a supportive process to get the best results possible. We’ve spent a good bit of time developing this with Galway Film Centre and so it’s great to be announcing it now.” Around 65% of this €23,000 will become the production budget once all other costs are covered.

Monday, 24 August 2015

Hi Shirley and welcome to emergingwriter. I enjoyed the launch recently of your new poetry collection, Stone Dress and I devoured
the book on the way home.

First question. How
did you first get into poetry?

The poems I wrote as a child bear a strong metrical resemblance
to the hymns we sang in St Patrick's Presbyterian church in Waterford. I think
that was my most likely influence, although we did read, and hear poetry read
aloud at home. My mother was a primary school teacher and made sure we read more
than Enid Blyton. In return I gave her carefully bound editions of 'My Poems'.
This is beginning to remind me of Billy Collins' 'The Lanyard'...

Billy Collins - The Lanyard.

Does the
carefully bound edition of “My Poems” still survive?

Probably,
I shall look.

Would you
want to go back and read your childhood poems? Have you? I’m not sure I would.
In my memory they are brilliant, but probably with my world weary eye now they
would appear less shiny.

I found my old poems!

But I am more amused by these than anything.

Did you continue writing through adolescence and on to early
adulthood? How did school affect that?

I continued writing whilst at school, devoured the poetry
sections of English text books and wrote for the school magazine. Teachers
encouraged my writing. A couple of friends tried putting my poems to music,
strumming away on their guitars on summer afternoons by the school pond.
(Winter afternoons on their dorm beds?) Leslie Dowdall came to our school in
fifth year, and did me the honour of singing one of my poem/songs at a school
concert. (Already we could see she was good).

In college I did English & Spanish, read a lot and still
wrote a bit, but it all kind of fizzled out as the years went by, with a kind
of small revival when I got to forty.

Do
you remember your first published poem as an adult?

Getting published is always a thrill! Although one of my poems
appeared in our college magazine, Icarus
(1982), and a translation of mine from Spanish to English showed up in Poetry Ireland Review, I think I was
most excited when in 1992, after a long 'sleep', one of my poems was selected
to appear in Women's Work, an
anthology of poems brought out by a Wexford-based community arts group. We were
invited to read our poems, and my partner and I went to Wexford for the night.
There I tasted the thrill of reading 'live', a pleasure I rediscovered fifteen
years later after another long pause in my writing career. I remember the night
so well, and the excitement of meeting other women who wrote. It makes me
wonder why I stopped writing, or why I wrote so little really between the ages
of 20 and 40. I suppose I was doing other things. Once I got into writing
proper, I discovered the equally strong emotion of disappointment each time
poems were rejected. Not funny.

So
there’s hope for every lapsed writer! What brought you back into poetry, do you
think?

A
friend threw a 40th birthday party for me, where people performed
and sang. Very enjoyable, except that they had dug out a few of my old poems
and these were read, to my deep embarrassment! It made me think, though, and
soon afterwards I attended a weekend writing workshop which really inspired me.
At another workshop I met James Conway, who runs Rathmines Writers' Workshop, a
long-standing group which meets weekly. I joined the group and the challenge to
produce a new poem every week got me going. I would encourage anybody who is
starting out or re-starting to attend courses/workshops, and to join a group
where you get helpful feedback. Since then I have always been part of a
work-shopping group: I spent about 5 years each in Rathmines and then Airfield
Writers, then set up a small peer group with my friend Jane Clarke and three
others. The group keeps my focus whenever I lose it. We do 2 poems each and stick
to a strictish half hour per person arrangement, after which we all need to go
home!How
did your first poetry collection come about?

I was preparing my first manuscript to send out when I saw an ad
for the Cork Literary Review/ Bradshaw Books manuscript competition. So I sent
my collection, Whose Counting there
and was very lucky to win in 2009. Tina Pisco was writer in residence at Tigh
Fili/ Bradshaw Books at that time, and she and Maura Bradshaw were very
encouraging to me in getting the book out. They got me down to Cork to do a few
readings which was a big help.

And what
about your most recent collection?

Bradshaw Books encouraged me to move on as they prefer to
publish new writers, so for my second collection I did have to decide where
best to send my work. Again I was lucky in that Arlen House does not accept
unsolicited manuscripts, but a fellow writer who knew my work suggested they
have a look at it. Alan Hayes and I exchanged edited versions of the manuscript
and met to agree on final changes. He pointed out that I am over-fond of
italics, so I will watch out for that in future! Apart from that, we tended to
be in agreement about the changes to be made, so it progressed quickly. The
book was launched in Dublin in July, and I'll be taking it on tour from next
week (Kilkenny on 27th August) with Jane Clarke, who is promoting
her new book, The River.

What do you have coming up?

Stone House Books, Kilkenny
The Kilkenny launch of Spanish Affair and Jane Clarke'sThe Riveris inStone House Books on Thursday 27th
August at 7pm. Music by Eamon Sweeney, whose Spanishguitar is featured on the CDSpanish Affair.

Café Fusion, Wexford
Shirley and Jane read at Café Fusion on Friday 4th September at 8pm.

Courthouse Arts Centre, Tinahely, Co. Wicklow
Shirley McClure, Jane Clarke, and classical guitarist, Eamon Sweeny, will give
a performance of poetry and music on Thursday 24th September at 8.30pm.

Thanks Shirley. Good luck with your upcoming readings with Jane.
Here’s a poem from Shirley’s second collection, Stone Dress published by Arlen House, available to buy online from Kenny’s bookshop.

Groomed

Today she has been clipped, primped,
squeezed,

handed back with a pink bow, she's a
smooth black angel

beneath whose sleek chops, butter
wouldn't melt.

Tonight is warm, the garden wild
with possibility.

Suddenly the bellows of her belly
surge, her body spasms

to expel the rare meat struggling in
her mouth.

On the grass the hedgehog still
breathes, but somehow

she has opened him, got right in
without incurring

a single spine on her perfectly
barbered snout.

Bio:Shirley
McClure's new collection, 'Stone Dress', is published by Arlen House in August
2015. Her CD Spanish Affair, with her own poems plus poetry and music
from invited guests, was launched in June. All proceeds from the CD go to
Arklow Cancer Support Group, where she facilitates a writers' group. Her first
poetry collection, Who's Counting? (Bradshaw Books) won Cork Literary
Review's ManuscriptCompetition 2009.
She won Listowel Writers' Week Originals Poetry Competition 2014. Shirley lives
in Bray, Co. Wicklow.Shirley’s website is here: www.thepoetryvein.com

Saturday, 22 August 2015

A free to enter short story competition from Holland Park Press - not many of those.

For this new competition we’re taking inspiration from Arthur Rimbaud’s famous declaration ‘Je est un autre’ – ‘I is another’.

The task

We would like you to write a story in the first person about someone who is not you but which is about a subject close to year heart. Therefore the storyline will really matter to you but the story should not be autobiographical.It should have a strong theme such as betrayal, sorrow, lust, jealousy or revenge and be under 2000 words.

Prize: The author of the winning short story will receive £200.The winning short story and runners-up will be published in our online magazine.The winner and runners-up will be announced at an awards ceremony in central London.

Thursday, 20 August 2015

As usual, I recommend you read a couple of issues before you submit to ANY publication.

Deadline: 24th August

Any genre or between-genre work of literature, or visual art (black and white) up to 75 pages in length. Short stories, novellas, poetry, comics, illustrations — bring it on. We do not publish non-fiction, memoir, or children’s stories. Aside from that we want anything entertaining and well written.

We accept simultaneous submissions. Previously printed pieces may be considered. We no longer accept multiple submissions.

Fiction Guidelines

We are looking for entertaining, accessible stories. We do appreciate clever and poetic turns of phrase, but first and foremost we want a story readers can sink into late at night before they go to bed. We want to stretch people’s minds, but not give them a headache.

We want a balance of serious and lighthearted stories. We receive so many brilliant but depressing stories that we must pass on all but the best gems. We strive for emotional balance in each of our issues, and want our readers to leave feeling challenged yet refreshed.

We aren’t satisfied with a joke. Some writers send shaggy dog stories that end with a twist or revelation that is funny, but not a story. A story is about a person, not a plot twist.

We take all genres, not just pulp. Because our title says “Pulp” Literature, some authors assume we want guns and blood. The “pulp” in our title refers to cheap pulp paper, which we someday hope to use. We want our magazine to include a balance of all genres, including fantasy, romance, mystery, literary, etc.

We take more short fiction than novellas. While we try to have one longer work of 15-20,000 words in every issue, that is only one story out of a dozen. This means we are pickier and wait longer to reply to novellas, usually requesting a re-write. We’re not saying to only send us short works, but do realize what the odds and time requirements are for novellas.

We want both plot and character. We like some action along with those intriguing personalities, and we want to see characters that grow and change throughout the story arc.

We have high standards. We want stories we can treasure, words that show the love and sweat and effort of strong storytellers. These are the works we get excited about polishing so they shine to brilliance in our publication

Tuesday, 18 August 2015

Some interesting events if you're near Belfast Wednesday 19th to 31st August

Thursday 20th August
Home Thoughts
Poetry, Memoir & Song
with Gerald Dawe & Eleanor Shanley
7:00pm, Belmont
Tower
To celebrate the publication of Gerald
Dawe’s Early Poems, his memoir, The
Stoic Man and his most recent poetry
collection, Mickey Finn’s Air. Traditional folk singer, and musician Eleanor
Shanley joins Gerald for an entertaining
session of readings and songs based upon
some of the local places the poet has written about
in both poetry and prose. Renowned for her unique
interpretation of Irish and Roots songs, Eleanor
Shanley from Co Leitrim is one of Ireland’s foremost
singers. She has been at the top of her profession
since her first appearance with De Danann in 1990.
Her first solo album ‘Eleanor Shanley’ was
produced by Donal Lunny and was followed in 1997
by ‘Desert Heart’. As a solo artist Eleanor is much in
demand at top music festivals in Ireland and abroad
(Denmark, Holland, Austria, Spain, Italy, Australia, the
USA, Japan, China and the UK to name but a few).
Tickets: £8
Available from www.eastsidearts.net

Friday 21st, Sunday 23rd and Saturday 29th August
Alice
Fresco
Outdoor Poetry Recital From Alice McCullough
3:00pm, ‘The Hollow’
Alice McCullough is an artist and writer living in Belfast. Her
art takes many forms, including among other things costume
design, standup comedy and performance poetry – ahead of
her show 'Earth To Alice' at the Strand Arts Centre on Sunday the 30th,
Alice will share a series of more intimate free performances outdoors, in
'The Hollow' - a picturesque little hideaway by the Beechie River off the
Beersbridge Road. Come meet this unique talent and experience her
award-winning poems, stories and songs in this beautiful setting.
Admission: Free

Saturday 22nd August
EastSide Out Loud:
Readings by Jan Carson & Andrew Eaton
6:30pm, Belmont Tower
Two east Belfast-based writers offer readings from new works: Jan
Carson is a writer and community arts development officer. Andrew
Deloss Eaton is an American poet who moved to Northern Ireland,
where his wife is from, to pursue a PhD in the Seamus Heaney Centre for
Poetry at Queen’s. His poetry meditates on themes of family, landscape and
violence as he writes in response to audio recordings of his grandfather,
recollecting his experience of internment in a Prisoner of War camp during
World War II.
Tickets: £7

Sunday 23rd August
On a Summer
Evening
A Poetry & Harp Recital
8:00pm to 9.30pm, Maitri Studio
Tanya Houghton presents
an eclectic mix of words
and music on the theme of
summer. She combines poetry with
music for harp and voice, weaving
a journey through varying emotional
responses to the season, offering
listeners a chance to meditate
and relax whilst engaging with
inspiring sounds and thoughts. The
performance lasts approximately
45 minutes, with drinks and
snacks available before and after.
Admission: £10 at the door

Tuesday 25th August
Glenn Patterson Reads from
Here’s Me Here
Hosted by Marie-Louise Muir
8:00pm, Strand Arts Centre (Screen 4)
Belfast author Glenn Patterson reads from his
new book, a collection of his writing for print
and broadcast, published by New Island Books.
As part of this year’s EastSide Arts Festival, we’re
offering a festival Book Club deal – buy a ticket for
tonight’s reading and get a copy of ‘Here’s Me Here’
in the ticket price. And if you purchase well ahead of
time, you get a chance to read the book and share your
insights and questions with the author.
Introducing Glenn on the night, and hosting
the discussion, will be BBC Northern Ireland’s own MarieLouise
Muir. In addition, all patrons will receive a bowl
of Dal, prepared by Mr. Patterson himself. As he says
himself: ‘I have a sentimental attachment to the stuff, a
long story that I have boiled down to a more digestible
three minutes, which I will serve up in their entirety with
a selection of other morsels lifted from Here’s Me Here’.
Tickets: £10

Thursday 27th August
Creative Writing
Workshop
With Sheena Wilkinson
7:00pm-9:30pm, Maitri Studio
Always wanted to write? Got an idea and not
sure how to take it further? Wherever you
are with your writing, you should be further
on and more confident after this interactive, handson
workshop with award-winning novelist Sheena
Wilkinson. The focus will be on using everyday tools
to create characters and develop ideas.
Admission: £15

Friday 28th August
Multitudes
Read by Lucy Caldwell
11:00am, Ballyhackamore Library
In this exclusive event, Belfast-born author Lucy
Caldwell will give an advance reading from her debut
collection of short stories, Multitudes, to be published
by Faber in 2016. The stories are set in and around east
Belfast, and explore the many facets of growing up - the
pain and the heartache, the tenderness and the joy, the
fleeting and the formative - ‘the drunkenness of things
being various’. In keeping with the celebrations of Van
Morrison’s 70th birthday and Cyprus Avenue concert, she
will discuss how his music and lyrics have influenced
her work, and read a story written, in part, in homage to
‘Cyprus Avenue’ and Astral Weeks.
Lucy is the author of three novels and several stage
plays and radio dramas and has received numerous
awards. Her most recent novel, All the Beggars Riding, was
chosen for Belfast’s One City One Book campaign in 2013
and shortlisted for the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year.
Admission: £5

North West Words have produced a unique CD 'The Donegal Collection' featuring the best in original music and poetry by poets, artists, singers and musicians from throughout the County of Donegal.All proceeds from the sale of the CD will go to the local hospice who provide palliative care to terminally ill people in County Donegal. The CD will be available directly from the Donegal Hospice and in outlets throughout the County - for listing and further details see www.donegalhospice.ie

Sunday, 16 August 2015

Join the Abbey Theatre Literary Team at the Irish Writers Centre for a series of curated workshops.

Find out more about how the Abbey Theatre develops new plays. Bounce some ideas off them or get the facts about submitting your work. Spend time on the nuts and bolts of your trade and take the chance to develop some new ideas with the help of established theatre makers.

Michael West (Conservatory, Freefall) will facilitate this year’s Playwrights Hub.

Any interested writers will need to send an expression of interest and their writing experience to script@abbeytheatre.ie.

As the places for the Hub are strictly limited, the deadline for expression of interest will be 21 August and all applicants will be contacted by August 28.

There will be three groups of 10 playwrights and each group will have a 3 hour workshop with an established theatre maker.

Some dedications to famous people are a little boast-y. I met {insert famous name here} and you, dear reader, probably didn't. Or I possibly reflected glory.

My first published poem was in the same issue of Poetry Ireland Review as a poem by Seamus Heaney. So he probably read it. It was about changing toilet rolls. I like to think he thought about my poem while contemplating toilet rolls of his own.

I'm not sure who I would chose for a celebrity dedicatee. I reference Ozzy Osbourne in a poem. And Fred Astaire and Vincent Van Gogh and The Spice Girls amongst others. (Not all in the same poem) But I don't think I'd dedicate a whole book to any of those. Even Vincent.

So how about revenge dedications?

"My first stepfather used to say that what I didn’t know would fill a book. Well, here it is."

“This Book is dedicated to my father Joseph Hill Evans with love.
As I said before, Dad doesn’t read fiction. He still hasn’t noticed that this thing is dedicated to him. This is Volume Two – let’s see how many more until he catches on.”

“This is still dedicated to you-know-who, even if he doesn’t.
Maybe we can keep this a secret all the way to the final volume.”

“My father still hasn’t actually cracked any of the books – so, no, he still hasn’t noticed. I think I’m just going to have to tell him. Maybe I should break it to him gently."

“Everyone here who hasn’t had a book dedicated to them, take three steps forward. Whoops, Dad, hang on there for a second…”

Tuesday, 4 August 2015

They are looking fornovels(50,000 words or more) that contain some element of the speculative or fantastic. Simply put, they’re looking for awesomescience fiction, fantasy and horror novels.

This open submissions period is a chance for unagented authors only.

The submissions period opened at 12 am GMT on 3 August, 2015, and will close on 16 August,2015, at 11.59 pm, GMT.

Details on what to include here. Read the guidelines and adhere to them!

They are looking for the first 3 chaptersorthe first 15,000 words of your novel, whichever you prefer and synopsis.

They say:

We will read through every submission that we receive. We will make every effort to get back in touch with you by 30 September, 2015, to let you know our decision.Please donotemail us to ask whether we’ve read your submission yet.

They are open to submissions from anywhere in the world, not just the UK.

If you would like to submit a previously self-published novel, let them know

Prizes: The Overall Prize Winner will receive a cash prize of €200 Runners-Up prizes will also be awarded in categories that include International Poetry, International Prose/Short Stories, National Poetry, National Prose/Short-Story, Local Winner in both Poetry and Prose/Short Stories categories, prizes for Highly Commended and National Schools.

The Ger Hanily Memorial Cup will also be awarded from the entries submitted.

Competition Rules of Entry:

· All entries submitted must be the author’s own unpublished work

· Entries are limited to three entries (poems, short-story or prose) per person

· Entrant’s name and address contact number, details, must be on a separate page to the written submission